Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Making the best of the mid-day sun.

I was driving home from an appointment at about 1:00 in the afternoon with the sun high in the sky. Usually this is not the best time to photograph as the light is pretty flat and the shadows that are there are harsh. Yet as I was coming down the road by Nosehill Park here in Calgary I could see a good number of clouds starting to come in from the west and I knew they could make for a dramatic subject. Pulling in to a parking lot at the base of the hill I knew I wanted to photograph the clouds but needed to include some other elements as well.

As I walked along I saw some clusters of Milkweed plants and felt that these could look good with the sky and clouds behind them. On the following two images I got down low to the ground to shoot up at the Milkweed with the sky in the background. These were two different clusters as I liked the way both looked in their own unique way.

Next I looked at the well worn path and I liked the curve of it as it headed up the hill. I tried a couple of shots at various heights and also tilted the iPhone as I am known to do. This one with the group of trees on the left was my favorite.

After hiking for a while and not seeing much else that caught my fancy I started back down one of the paved paths to the parking lot. As I walked along I saw this sign and felt there was a little humorous aspect by positioning it with all the clouds rolling in behind it. It is obvious that there is more then 10 clouds coming into town.

Lastly as I neared the parking lot this small flash of colour caught my eye and I saw the only flowers I had seen the whole day. Being that fall is near this is not surprising as the wild flowers have pretty well died away. But I was enjoying to look at them and wanted a photo. I used my own shadow to soften the harsh mid afternoon usn and make this pleasing image.

When I returned home I looked at the photo's and though I used Snapseed to crop and frame the final results, I felt that these images needed no other post production other then a little bit of exposure compensation. So they are pretty well as I saw the scene this afternoon.